Chapter Four
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JASPER WAS FINALLY about to meet Sarah face-to-face, and he was nervous.
Maybe he shouldn’t be. The two of them had talked plenty of times on the phone, and last time, she’d told him that she believed he was who he said he was.
That was probably the one reason she’d finally agreed to meet him.
She had to travel to him, but she’d said that wasn’t a problem.
What had been a problem was that she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t a liar trying to scam her or something.
He didn’t understand how he could scam her, but what he did or didn’t understand didn’t matter.
Only how Sarah felt did, and apparently, she now felt they knew each other well enough that they could meet.
They were to be doing so at a coffee shop.
Jasper stared at the store from outside, trying to find the courage to walk in.
He could see a monster sitting in a corner, sipping on what looked like an iced mocha, and while it might not be Sarah, there was a good chance that it was.
Jasper wasn’t late, but it was getting near the time they’d agreed to meet, so it would make sense that she’d already be there.
She’d told Jasper that she was always early, and this would be an odd situation for her not to be.
He swallowed. He needed to go in there. It was the only way for him to find out about his parents.
He supposed he and Sarah could continue talking over the phone and through emails, but it wasn’t the same.
This person had met his parents. She’d known them and had been friends with them.
Jasper had been with them, too, of course, but he couldn’t remember any of it.
Sarah could, and that was something Jasper had a hard time wrapping his mind around.
He needed this, and he didn’t want her to get angry because he didn’t show up. He hoped she would understand he was nervous.
He wished he’d said yes when Archie had offered to come.
He’d wanted to, even though he was sure he could do it on his own, but he hadn’t wanted Sarah to be uncomfortable.
She might have said yes to Archie’s presence, but would it have been because she’d really be okay with him there or because she felt she didn’t have a choice?
No, it was better this way, and Jasper just needed to find his guts and use them.
He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and marched towards the coffee shop.
Warm coffee-scented air hit his face when he opened the door, and he felt himself relax.
He was a coffee guy, always had been. This was no different than when he had coffee with Corey and Kerry.
Sarah might not be his friend, but they were friendly, and that was what Jasper should focus on.
He grabbed his coffee, shuffling from one foot to the other while he watched the woman in the corner. She was reading a book, and she didn’t look up until he reached her table. He didn’t say anything when he did, just waited for her to notice him.
When she did, she put down her book and looked up at him. “You definitely look like your mother,” she said.
Jasper swallowed. “I’m Jasper. It’s good to meet you.”
“It’s good to meet you, too. I never would’ve thought I’d see you again.”
Jasper slid into the chair in front of her. He didn’t know where to start. He had dozens of questions, and he didn’t want to overwhelm her. He was overwhelming himself, thinking about everything he wanted to ask. “So you don’t have any doubts that I’m who I say I am?”
“Not after seeing you. You have her eyes.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” It was better than having Leroy’s eyes. Now that Jasper thought about it, no one ever said he looked like either of his parents. That was probably because he didn’t.
“I was hesitant to come, but I’m glad I did,” Sarah said. “I knew you when you were a little boy. You were the light of your parents’ lives.”
Jasper told himself that crying now would be the worst thing he could do.
He wasn’t sure he would get through this without doing so.
“I know nearly nothing about them,” he told Sarah.
“Well, beyond what you’ve already told me.
I know that they didn’t intend for the sanctuary to become so important, that they were just looking for a place where they could be together and raise their family. ”
She nodded. “Initially, it was just them and a few friends. I came in later.” She hesitated.
“I didn’t have a partner, but I had a daughter with a human.
I didn’t feel safe raising her anywhere.
Humans hated us, and monsters, well. Some were okay with it, but not everyone.
Even though nothing ever really happened, I didn’t feel like I could keep my daughter safe.
That’s when I heard about the sanctuary.
I was wary at first because it sounded too good to be true, but then our landlord kicked us out.
He’d been trying to do it for months, since he’d found out about my daughter’s parentage, and I didn’t have anywhere to go.
That’s when I reached out to your parents.
They immediately offered a room and told me not to worry about anything. ”
“And you became their friend,” Jasper murmured.
“I did. It’s why I didn’t leave even after I was back on my feet.
Why would I have? The sanctuary was home.
I was surrounded by family, even though we weren’t biologically related.
Your mom was pregnant when I first met them, and I was there after you were born.
We all took care of you and your mom. It truly felt like it was a place where we could be happy, and we were for a long time. ”
“Until the hunters.”
“We were always a target of the hunters. They didn’t like that so many monsters were gathered together in the same place. They thought it was suspicious. They usually left us alone, though.”
“They didn’t that night.”
Sarah shook her head. “I’m still not entirely sure what happened that night.
Most hunters just left us alone, but not all of them.
Those who thought we were up to something wanted the sanctuary disbanded and all of us to go our own way.
They tried to close the sanctuary several times, but we weren’t doing anything wrong.
We were just living our lives, so they didn’t have a way to shut us down. Things started escalating.”
“And exploded eventually.”
“I can’t give you all the answers you’re seeking. What I can do is talk to you about your parents, though.” Sarah hesitated. “You really never knew about them?”
“I was raised by a hunter. I still don’t know why he and his wife took me in, and I’m not sure I’ll ever know because he won’t talk to me about it. I thought I was fully human until recently, when a monster told me that I wasn’t. It was a shock, and I’ve been looking into my family ever since.”
“Do you like what you found out?”
“I don’t like that my parents are dead, but they seem like they were very good people.
I wish I could’ve known them. I wish I could remember them.
” But no matter how hard Jasper tried, he couldn’t.
He’d only been a child, very young, and there were no memories there for him to remember.
The only way he would ever find out anything about his parents was by talking to people like Sarah, and he realized how lucky he was that she’d agreed to it.
He might be about to ruin everything, but he needed to know.
“What about the symbol?” he asked gently.
Sarah’s small smile disappeared. “What do you know about it?”
“That it represented my father’s bloodline. I know it was very old and that I’m probably the only survivor.”
“All of that is correct.”
“Why would a killer use it, though? Why did you sound afraid on the phone last time we talked?”
Sarah looked away. “Wouldn’t you be scared if you found out that someone is killing people who were at the sanctuary that night?”
“But they’re not killing people. They’re killing hunters.”
“For now.”
There was nothing Jasper could say to that because Sarah was right.
For now, they only knew about two ex-hunters getting killed, but how could they find out if there were more victims?
How could they find out if the thing that linked these people was that they were ex-hunters and not something else?
Jasper had more answers when it came to questions about his past, but he still didn’t know what was going on with Archie’s case, and that worried him.
He was pretty sure that the killer wasn’t done yet.
And that they wouldn’t be done for a long time.
* * * *
ARCHIE HAD A LOT OF informants. It was necessary in his line of work, and he always tried to treat them well. That way, he was the first they came to when they had information he couldn’t find anywhere else.
He was ever so glad when he got the message that there had been another murder.
He wasn’t sure how his informants had managed to get their hands on the picture of the symbol on the ground next to the victim, but if they hadn’t managed it, Archie never would’ve known it was related.
They didn’t have the victim's name, but they knew he was a hunter, so it was fairly easy for Archie to hack into the hunters’ database and find out.
The hunters took people killing their own seriously.
They hadn’t investigated Daniel and the other one because they were ex-hunters and had probably left the organization under not great circumstances.
This case was different. The symbol was there, but the hunter wasn’t an ex-hunter.
He was still working, albeit in a desk job.
Well, he wouldn’t be working anymore since he was dead, but he was still part of the organization, which meant that a hunter had been killed.
They were going to investigate, which might make Archie’s life complicated, especially if they connected Daniel’s murder to this.
Archie felt like he was running out of time to find out what happened.